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Patachou Foundation Students from Mrs. Meyer's class are exploring ways to use our tower gardens more effectively at Boone Meadow for fresh foods and gardening opportunities. On Monday, they took a study trip to Public Greens, a restaurant located in Broad Ripple. The Patachou Foundation addresses food insecurity by providing and equipping communities through micro-garden approaches. Our experience with the Patachou Foundation provided a most excellent connection to our learning. | Public Greens The Public Greens micro-farm along the Monon Trail generates over a ton of produce a year. The produce is used by the restaurant located next door. Here, the gardener led the students through the garden and explored ways they can do the same in their own communities. In addition to learning about the benefits of gardening, students also had first hand experiences with harvesting foods while studying the life cycles evident within the ecosystems. | Thank You, ZEF! Through the generosity of the Zionsville Education Foundation (ZEF) and Dr. Robison, students from Mrs. Meyer's class engaged in this unique learning experience. During their study trip, the students made and enjoyed a pesto & vegetable salad by using produce and herbs they harvested from the micro-garden located in Broad Ripple. The grant from ZEF was awarded as a connected learning experience to foster creative usage of the tower gardens at Boone Meadow. |
Patachou Foundation
Public Greens
Thank You, ZEF!
NWEA Reports Distributed
In your child’s folder, you should have received a Student Progress Report from NWEA. These assessments are administered district-wide in fall, winter, and spring, to assist in monitoring student progress over time. NWEA data is used by teachers to assist with instructional design and planning. As with any assessment, we cannot quantify all your child’s learning, but it does provide insight to academic progress. An occasional rise and fall in performance is often observed, but note that when comparing year to year, an overall growth in RIT scores is expected.
For more information, you can visit the ZCS website for more information on NWEA. https://www.zcs.k12.in.us/apps/pages/nwea
Spotlight on Music w/ Mr. Doublestein
A big thank you to all the parents who generously supported my three Donors Choose projects last year. Over $3,000 was raised for five brand new instruments called bass bars, and your kids will be thrilled to hear that those instruments have finally arrived!
It is interesting to note that bass bars, like many other instruments including xylophones, marimbas and guitars are made out of rosewood, a very desirable species of wood that has recently become protected from overharvesting through international trade restrictions. This means that American companies can no longer import rosewood instruments, and unfortunately an alternative to rosewood has yet to make its way into the production of Orff instruments like bass bars. Therefore, the only bass bars available are those that were imported to the United States before the new restrictions were put into effect. When I ordered the five bass bars I had originally hoped to purchase them from a distributor selling Studio 49 instruments. Studio 49 is a German company that worked with Carl Orff to invent Orff instruments back in the 1940s, and to this day makes by far the highest quality Orff instruments available. However, I was only able to purchase three of the five bass bars this way, the last of the distributor’s pre-restriction inventory. To find the other two I had to get creative.
Finally, I managed to find two other bass bars made by a different company, and while the quality isn’t as high they turned out to be far better than I expected. Even better, I was left with a balance big enough to purchase dozens of other unpitched percussion instruments that I know the kids will enjoy. The extra instruments, funded exclusively by the original project amount, include wind chimes, a slap stick, a flex-a-tone, a kokoriki, a thunder drum, 16 cymbals, 2 finger cymbals, and 29 jingle taps. I can’t wait to show all these new instruments to the kids next week and let them explore the sounds of each.
Thank you so much for your donations, and thank you for investing in the music program at Boone Meadow!
The Fall Book Fair is Coming!
Student Conferences - Oct. 3rd and 4th
Sharing information about student progress is an important focus area for us, especially for our youngest learners. This focus has led to improved calibration of the annual parent-teacher-student conferences held in the fall of each school year. In the past, variances in scheduling of conferences led to safety issues and to very early dates for some conferences. This diminished the effectiveness of these important discussions about student progress.
- The conference days (elementary schools only) will occur on the afternoon of October 3rd (2:30-3:30PM) and on October 4th from 11:10AM to 7:00PM.
- If you have not scheduled with your child's teacher, please fee free to contact them to confirm a time.
- In exactly the same way we use e-days in the event of snow or other school cancellation make-up days, we will place one elementary e-day on Thursday, October 4th.
- Assignments posted (on our learning management system CANVAS) will be released on October 3rd and will have approximately one week to complete. This time delay in turning in the assignments accommodates those who have difficulty with home access to the online content (just as we do with e-days for snow or other school cancellation make-ups).
Upcoming Events & Important Info
September 26 - Jog-A-Thon
October 3rd (afternoon) & 4th (afternoon/evening) - Student Conferences/E-Day
October 8 - October 11 - Book Fair
October 9th - Fire Safety Talk/Truck - 1st Grade, Picture Re-Take Day
October 10th - Fire Safety Talk/Truck PK and Kdg; PTO Meeting 6:00pm w/ Dedication of Shade Structure with American Association of Dermatology
October 11th - Fire Safety Talk/Truck - 2nd Grade
October 15th-19th - Fall Break
October 24th - Blood Drive 3:00-7:00pm Cafe
November 12th - Veterans Day Program 9:30am
The School Directory App is Updated with current family information!
Our Student directory is now complete! Many thanks to the PTO for organizing this helpful resource! To access the directory follow these steps:
- Go to www.directoryspot.net or download the “Directory Spot” app on a smart phone.
- Enter your email address as your Username, and click on “Reset Password”. An email will be sent to you with a link to set your password.
- Click on the link in the email to set your password and to log in.
If you have trouble logging in, please contact PTO volunteer Eileen Adam at eileenadam@hotmail.com.
Texts from SchoolMessenger
From time to time Boone Meadow uses SchoolMessenger to send a text to all of the families. If you haven't been receiving texts from us, you may need to opt-in by sending YES to the SchoolMessenger short code of 68453. Contact Beth Kiel in the front office if you have any questions!
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PK making fruit salad! | The finished product! | Celebrated international Dot day! |
PK making fruit salad!
The finished product!
Celebrated international Dot day!
